Impressions on Game 3, Anand-Gelfand world championship match, Moscow
At last the battle we have been waiting for. Viswanathan Anand and Boris Gelfand brought all their combined experience, knowledge and understanding of the game in a head-on clash that produced the best game so far.
GGelfand stuck to his guns, or rather Grunfeld. The first surprise was the world champ, who essayed 3.f3. The idea behind this move is to construct a powerful battering ram of pawns. The Grunfeld is for thrill seekers - the bungee jumpers, the X-treme sportsaholics of the chess world. And there were plenty of thrills to be had.
While Gelfand tried to smash up White's centre, Anand responded with a pawn thrust on the flanks targeting the black king. This setup is a sub-variation which rejoices under the name of "Goglidze Attack". Both sides castled on opposite wings of the board, which meant fierce assaults would break upon their respective kings.
Despite the complex position, Gelfand showed his psychological acumen, playing quickly. Did he really have a powerful surprise or was he just bluffing? Anand sank into deep thought. He eschewed a pawn move which had brought much success to white in the past and instead made two consecutive king moves, tucking the monarch into a corner to weather the storm. This in turn 'threw' Gelfand. He too began cogitating before finally coming up with a powerful new idea, hacking into White's position with a pawn hay-maker. This also activated the powerful Grunfeld bishop, which hitherto had been lurking in the background.
Anand reacted instantly, moving his own prelate into the threatened diagonal, setting up a wild west showdown between the rival bishops. A schism in the flock!
Gelfand in turn targeted the white knight on c3. As the situation developed, it was clear that this knight was overloaded, a key defensive piece holding everything together, the keystone of White's defensive architecture. Eliminate it and the white position implodes.
The challenger targeted this heroic cavalier for assassination, moving his own paladin into a strike position. Anand reinforced the threatened knight and the tension continued.
At this point Gelfand sank into deep thought. Finally he moved, swinging his queen over to oversee the attack. Strategically, the position was favourable for White while tactically Black had many resources. Put it in crude terms, if Anand survived the middle-game he would win, if Gelfand got to the ending, he would be lost.
Therefore Anand triggered a series of exchanges which meant that the queens left the board. Now a revenant from the opening was the dangerous 'd' pawn which was threatening to cannonball its way all down to the touchline.
At this juncture, with tension at the peak, showing admirable calmness , the official video feed cut to a documentary on the Mother of God. But perhaps there was a deeper meaning. The Virgin of Vladimir is probably the most-venerated Orthodox icon, instantly recognizable across the world. The Theotokos (literally 'birth-giver of God') is credited for saving Moscow thrice from invasion, two times against the Mongol hordes and most famously, in December 1941. With the Wehrmacht pounding on Moscow's gates, Stalin ordered the icon to be loaded on a plane which circled the besieged capital. Soon enough, the Germans fell back, the high water mark of their juggernaut, a tide that would not return.
Perhaps some of this protective power rubbed off the Challenger for he barely survived Anand's ensuing counter-strike.
Gelfand's attempts to checkmate the white sovereign were swept aside, and instead Anand's forces began acting in menacing concert. The Indian maestro was now in zeitnot, time pressure. With the sands of time pouring away, he began playing swiftly and decisively, rising to the pressure, that massive brain operating at full capacity.
The Israeli realizing passive defence was out of the question continued in his attempts to corral the white king. This monarch showed a royal sang froid as a black knight suddenly parked itself right next to him.
Now down to a minute a move, Anand first removed the threat posed by this obstreperous chevalier. His rooks then swung in tandem, to clear the path for the 'd' pawn, which was waiting in the wings for its intended coronation. Alas, that auspicious hour never arrived.
While all this was happening Gelfand's own rooks made a do-or-die dash into the enemy camp. In the throes of time pressure, Anand did not have the leisure to calculate his way all the way to safety. The challenger's rooks set up a checking mechanism where they would constantly hound the white king with checks - a perpetual motion engine which would inevitably lead to a draw.
And that is what happened, Anand clearly annoyed at the missed shot. However, it seems now that there was no win, or at least nothing tangible, especially that could be executed in the dying minutes of the game.
It has been a banquet for chess lovers and there will be especially keen interest when Game 5 comes around, with Anand again with the white pieces. Could it be that 3.f3 was a stop-gap measure while the A-Team needed some time to 'crunch' the Grunfeld? Or will Gelfand in his turn abandon this "living on the edge" and opt for something less hazardous?
